By Ruben Leyva
After Frank Leyva was listed on the Mescalero Apache census in 1885, his presence at Mescalero is sporadic in the available records. But he reappeared at Fort Sill to escort his aging mother, Ishno'n, to Mescalero in 1909 to visit his brother, Chiricahua Jim Miller. Between those decades, where was Frank? The answer may lie in a borderland not far from Tucson and Nogales—along the Sierra Madre spine where two Apache worlds survived: one hidden in plain sight, the other still free in the mountains.
Anthropologist Morris Opler, citing Eastern Chiricahua (Warm Springs Apache) informant Duncan Balachu, described a group living south of Tucson who spoke like the Chiricahua, remembered songs, and were visited by Jim Miller (a Chiricahua living at Mescalero). These were the so-called "Apache mansos." Neighboring Chiricahua Apache groups referred to them as "Bá̱ch'i" (sometimes spelled Bāāchii/Bà Tcí/Bači and pronounced approximately BAH-ch'ee), meaning "outsiders" or "strangers"—a term that might have been mistaken by non-Apache observers as a band name. In contrast, names like "Tsé Góne Ndee" (pronounced approximately TSEH GOH-neh n-DEH), meaning "Rock Place People," reflect place-based identities more consistent with Apache naming traditions. A term like Bá̱ch'i could have been overheard and recorded by outsiders as a name when, in fact, it was a label indicating that these families were no longer regarded as part of the leading social body—those folks who were "not really us anymore." This dynamic may help explain the lack of surviving self-names for the group and the confusion found in the historical record.
To clarify, the terms "Apache mansos" and "Manso Indians" refer to two separate Indigenous Peoples, both regarded as peaceful by the Spanish and thus referred to as "manso," a Spanish word meaning "tame" or "mild." However, this community was clearly Chiricahua-speaking and lived in south-central Arizona, not El Paso. Their presence indicates both a geographic location in lower, settled lands and a cultural perspective of those who had adapted to life away from traditional highland camps.
T.J. Ferguson's anthropological work cites Goodwin's research on two groups from Arizona's San Pedro Valley region—the Dáhàgòtsùdń (Yellow Above Extending Upward People) and the Ságùné, which are believed to be Bá̱ch'i. Notably, the people often labeled as Bá̱ch'i were said to have referred to themselves as Ságùné, which is probably a misrendering of Tsé-góne—a local band of the Chiricahua who saw themselves as part of the larger borderland Chiricahua alliance. A portion of the Ságùné moved from Tucson north to the Pinaleño Mountains. This relocation may blur the lines between the Chiricahua Apache and the Apache-Yavapai groups for modern scholars, but for those with knowledge of traditional Apache group identities, distinctions remain clear.
As Grenville Goodwin documented in "The Social Organization of the Western Apache," the Pinaleño identity in ethnographic sources referred primarily to San Carlos Apache bands and Apache-Yavapai groups. This editorial builds upon that framework to highlight how Chiricahua families also maintained ties to these lands through cross-band alliances. The Pinaleño Mountains, like the Sierra Madre, functioned as shared Apachería—places of refuge, alliance, and kinship that bridged distinct bands while preserving local autonomy. Pinaleño as a band identity could encompass these interconnected Apache families—whether north or south of the border—who drew their strength from the forests of the Pinaleño Mountains and the sheltering ridges of the Sierra Madre.
The union between Apache Frank's son, José Leandro Leyva—born into the Pinaleño Mountains Apache-Yavapai group—and Apache Elías's Nednhi granddaughter, Praxedis Elías, who was part of the Sierra Madre group, illustrates how Pinaleño-Nednhi is more than just a label. It reflects how Frank's family connects to the matrilocal Pinaleño-Nednhi local group, a merging of communities through kinship and the creation of a shared homeland across the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. Such a presence helps shed light on the fluidity of Apache tribal and band identities, as well as the formation of cross-border alliances. It may help clarify misconceptions about figures like the Apache Kid, who was a Western Apache. Born in Aravaipa Canyon northwest of the Pinaleño Mountains, the Apache Kid's later connection with Sierra Madre Apaches as an outlaw might stem from these deep-rooted kinship and territorial ties, rather than a simple change from one band or identity to another.
Anthropologist Leslie Spier, in *Yuman Tribes of the Gila River*, referred to the Tucson group as "washed Apaches"—a term reflecting how outsiders perceived Apaches who had settled and taken on aspects of Mexican or mestizo life. While often dismissive, the phrase masks deeper survival strategies. According to oral family history, some Apache families cut their hair as a form of protection. Hair—once worn long and loose to reflect tradition and warrior identity—became a liability. The need for concealment intensified after the notorious Fimbres family affair in 1927, when the boy Gerardo Fimbres was abducted by Apache raiders in Sonora. His father, Francisco Fimbres, led retaliatory expeditions, reviving long-abandoned scalp-hunting campaigns. In this climate of revenge and renewed violence, Apaches who had remained in Mexico faced increased scrutiny.
They, the Bá̱ch'i, Duncan Balachu remembered, "... had their hair cut when we were in gee-strings yet, Jim Miller (a Chiricahua) used to go and stay with them..." he told anthropologist Morris Opler, noting the stark contrast between the visible remnant and the defiant refugee. The community chose to remain by blending in, adapting, and surviving through invisibility. They were the other half of the story: the ones who never boarded the trains east and whose stories were nearly erased all the same.
Importantly, the community did not emerge in response to the 1886 Chiricahua exile. As Karl Jacoby documents in *Shadows at Dawn*, the Bá̱ch'i were already known in the Camp Grant region as early as the 1850s. This local group of Chiricahua Apaches lived in proximity to Mexican and settler towns, sometimes baptized, sometimes working as criados (servants), while retaining language, memory, and ceremony. Like the Bear Springs Navajo or specific Western Apache extended family camps, they functioned as a resilient cell—a place of refuge and kinship, not capitulation. Their presence allowed for continuity across generations, offering safety to those like Elías and later Frank Leyva AKA Felaytay, who moved between traditional and hidden modes of Apache survival.
In the final turning of this quiet circle, it was Jim Miller—known as Chiricahua Jim—who, Opler states, returned to visit the Bá̱ch'i. This was more than a diplomatic gesture; it was a familial one. Jim was visiting his brother, Frank Leyva, just as Frank had once accompanied their mother, Ishnoh'n, on a visit to see Jim at Mescalero. As Historian Gillett Griswold recorded, it was Frank who took Ishnoh'n to Mescalero around 1909—a visit between siblings divided by geography and strategy. In this way, the story comes full circle. Through Frank and Jim's reunion, the story was not lost. It was remembered, preserved in kinship, and carried forward by those who refused to let silence erase them.
Grenville Goodwin also noted that this group, the Bá̱ch'i, was an enemy to some Apache bands. Some Western Apache groups had a long and varied relationship with them. Goodwin tells the story of a young male Bá̱ch'i from Tucson who was captured by and lived with the Western Apache long enough to learn their patterns of behavior. The young man escaped, returning to his people, and agreed to help the Anglos by serving as an Apache scout against the Western Apache.
Still, the Bá̱ch'i community was Chiricahua in language and memory. In a 1933 letter to Morris Opler, Goodwin confirmed that he had received field information about this distinct group, who were said to have adopted a Mexican dress style but not a Mexican identity. They retained their Chiricahua Apache identity.
In 1897, The San Francisco Call reported that surveyors in Mexico encountered an armed Apache named Elías traveling from Nogales. Nogales is on the present-day border south of Tucson. The report described him as moving through or meeting near the Teras Mountains. This range forms part of the northern Sierra Madre Occidental system, closely tied to the Bavispe River watershed. This area connects to the Aros River and is framed by the Sierra Huachinera, Sierra de los Alisos, and Sierra Nacori Chico—territories recognized as part of the greater Pinaleño-Nednhi Apachería. Elías's presence here demonstrates that the cross-band connections moved fluidly within the borderland's region, drawing strength from its rugged terrain and kinship networks.
José de la Cruz Elías, also known as José María Elías, was an Apache captured as a boy by Hispanics. He became a servant in the Elías family's home in Tubac and taught the child of his employer, Jesús María, the Apache language, culture, and even the tracks of his people. After spending five or six years as a servant, José María mysteriously escaped back to his people as a teenager, earning the name Natculbaye, 'He Who Has Returned From Among the Enemy' [Nátgohłigo Báá'áye Ts'įzji]. After scouting for Lieutenant Leonard Wood for Geronimo's tagband, he went AWOL, taking his family to Mexico, never returning to Fort Bowie. He led a group of "Nameless Ones," who were from the Nednhi band of Chiricahua, which Mexicans called the "Broncos," meaning "wild." His local group of Elías Apaches was also known by Spanish speakers as Pinaleños, meaning "People of the Pines."
As observed by scholars like Karl Jacoby and Grenville Goodwin, this Bá̱ch'i group was often described as having been absorbed into the Mexican population of Tucson after the 1860s. Such views reflect the external perceptions of non-Apache observers, who noted shifts in dress, language use, or proximity to settler society and concluded that identity had changed. However, these interpretations overlook the self-perception of a people who, despite assimilationist pressures or the lack of federal recognition, continued to identify as Apache, as Indigenous, and as part of a sovereign community. Their songs, kinship ties, and connection to the land endured, and today their descendants assert that identity in the spirit of self-determination recognized by instruments like the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
Opler's classification of them as part of the Central Chiricahua, specifically, the Chokonen or Chukunende band, places them in the lineage of Cochise's people. Frank Leyva was born to another one of the four principal bands, the Chihene (Warm Springs). He married the daughter of Eskáni. Eskáni (Esquine), a leader from another band, the Bedonkohe, temporarily resided and aligned with the Chokonen band before Cochise's death.
Eskáni's brother, Nahilzay, a Chokonen War Captain, was married to Cochise's sister. The couple gave birth to Adelnietze, the famed non-surrender Apache, who escaped captivity with Elías and continued fighting into the mid-1890s. According to historian Lynda Sánchez, Adelnietze disappeared into the Sierra Madre after 1886 and was finally ambushed and killed in 1896. His story parallels Frank's—one remained hidden in plain sight, the other disappeared quietly across the border.
Elías' Nedhni band in the Sierra Madre did not represent a separate entity, but rather the final principal band and the southern arm of the same tradition—a continuation of Apache survival stretching from the pine-clad slopes of the Pinaleño Mountains near Tucson to the rugged Sierra Madre Occidental. Frank's Bá̱ch'i band's geographic and cultural placement, west of the Huachuca Mountains, positioned them as a liminal yet rooted extension of the Chokonen-Bedonkohe convergence, and far enough west to avoid being forced east by trains.
These links—of kinship, of geography, and refusal—bind Frank, Elías, and Adelnietze into a single narrative: they were the leaders of those who did not board the train, who did not become prisoners, and who maintained a community in Nogales, the Sierra Madre, and other border towns and villages.
Griswold notes Frank's time among the Yuma, a group displaced from their original home and moved to San Carlos. As explored in Part I, the label "Yuma" was often applied imprecisely by military and settler record-keepers, reflecting confusion between distinct Indigenous groups, including the Yuma (Quechan), Yavapai, and Mojave. Frank's association with the Yuma likely arose from such external misclassification, compounded by the complex web of alliances and relocations that shaped his survival. His people's proximity to other tribes in western Arizona makes it plausible that Frank's southern-central Arizona associations endured for generations.
One of the most vivid recollections Duncan Balachu shared with Opler describes an old man among them (Bá̱ch'i) standing with his grandchildren, gazing out over the borderlands near Tucson. He sang a song and cried. He replied when asked why, "All this land used to be ours." While Balachu did not name the man, the details evoke the kind of presence Frank Leyva—known as Apache Frank—might have had, as a remnant elder, bound to a place, guiding the memory of his people through quiet testimony. His words, simple and without bitterness, captured the pride and enduring connection to the land beneath their feet. This was not nostalgia for a lost world, but rather a reminder that belonging cannot be erased by government lines or deportation trains.
In his final years, Frank returned to Fort Sill—only briefly—to visit his mother. His reappearance was not a return to captivity but a closing of the circle. By 1941, he died among family in San Francisco de Conchos, Chihuahua, far from Florida, Fort Marion, or any reservation. Like Elías, like Adelnietze, he lived on the land and among the people who remembered.
This story of hidden leadership proves that Frank and his Leyva family were not Mexicans trying to be Apache. The so-called Apache mansos, Bá̱ch'i, or Ságùné, were an independent Chokonen local group living among the Western Apaches, the Sierra Madre Apaches, and the farmers of the Southwest—they were all part of the same web of kinship. And Frank Leyva, who was declared dead more than once, belonged to them, and so do I.
The Apache-Yavapai People of the Pinaleño Mountains and Bá̱ch'i band of Chiricahua Apache were intermarried and were united in geography and culture. While distance divided them from their kin in the Sierra Madre, both groups continued to acknowledge a shared identity. This historical background further supports the identification of the photo of "Felaytay" as Frank Leyva.
